Dobson Slams Callista Gingrich

To date, the sexual sins of candidates for President have focused on the candidates themselves.

Now that we've learned about Gingrich's bold "ask" for an "open marriage" to accommodate his acknowledged affair with Callista Gingrich, for the first time in history, the future First Lady's sexual sins are front and center for evangelicals and perhaps a significant portion of conservative voters.

That's the news this morning from the evangelical right as Focus on the Family's James Dobson declares his preference for Santorum because, among a host of other reasons, Karen Santorum "would make a fabulous first lady role model."

Here's the zinger.

Dobson went on to compare Karen with Callista, noting that "Newt Gingrich's wife . . . was a mistress for eight years."

Will The Right Forgive a Woman as They Forgive Their Men?

The evangelical right has been pretty forgiving of men's sexual misdeeds with women, while demonizing the allegedly far greater sexual sins of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

We're now about to see what the driving issues really are within the evangelical community and the far right when it comes to comparative sexual "sin."

Feminists have all along contended that one of the overlooked but driving issues on the "right" in reaction to the reproductive freedom and justice movement is women's sexual autonomy.

As one author has argued,

The Christian Right was born as a reaction to changes in women’s social roles, growing sexual liberty, and increased sexual knowledge in the early 20th century. Even today, the Christian Right can be defined as a reaction to women’s behavior and sexual liberties.

Where others see sexual liberty, the Christian Right sees sexual license. This is a problem for [certain segments of the Christian religious community for] two reasons.

First, sexual license is contrary to God’s will. Second, controlling sexuality is key to maintaining social order. When sexuality is improperly controlled, anarchy and chaos result. Women ignoring their god-given social roles are part of uncontrolled sexuality because women are defined as the keepers of moral virtue in the home and sexual virtue generally.

Abortion is not just [seen as] murder . . . [It, along with contraception] also disconnects sexual activity from procreation. This is [seen as being] contrary to God’s will and allows for sexual activity to proceed unchecked. Sex without consequences is [deemed to be] wrong because consequences help keep sex from leading to anarchy.